March 9, 2010 Letters

Missing the point

by Nick Comilla

So yeah... maybe James Augustynski should stick to studying mechanical engineering because he clearly doesn’t know the difference between the concept of a “social economy” (cooperatives, NGOs, charities) and, well, authoritarian statist socialism. I’m pretty sure that Le Frigo Vert never resulted in “crippling poverty, starvation, political repression” and “state-sponsored murder.” While it’s impressive that he could somehow link “social economy” to “socialism,” maybe he should take his own advice and actually study history to understand how those political systems became authoritarian, or how living conditions were in those countries before implementation of socialist policies, and while he’s at it, he could even look up some of the sneaky, undemocratic, authoritarian antics that capitalism has resulted in, too. As if socialism was just tried, y’know, for fun. Right.

—Nick Comilla,
Creative Writing